Tuesday, 28 April 2015

That’s one of the problems when you start to research the
war between Chile and the Peruvian Bolivian alliance in the late 19th
century. “War” and “Pacific” tends to give you results to do with the Second
World War. In terms of the relative importance in world history that’s probably
right, but the inhabitants of that part of South American still feel the
effects of the war. Hardly surprising , - people in the UK still get worked up
about the ECW.

Any how, the last week has seen me hit my first milestone on
this project. Despite erratic train times and other commitments (“Avengers, -
Age of Ultron” for example) I’ve broken my duck on the painting schedule.

I must say that I’ve taken some short cuts. Usually when I
start a project like this I split the manufacturer’s packets up as soon as I
get then and divide them up into units, ready for painting. This time I’ve
skipped that stage as it usually takes most of a Saturday or Sunday morning and
I thought I’d just get into the painting as soon as I could.

Plunging my hand at random into the box of goodies I plucked
forth some Peruvian infantry, so that’s where I started. My uniform research is
based entirely on that marvellous book published by Partisan Press that I have
written about in a previous blog ("Uniforms of the Pacific War 1879 - 1884 - The Land Campaigns"). Unit selection for the first trial paint job
was based upon units that (a) saw action in the second land campaign and (b)
appear in the uniform book. The armies changed uniforms for each of the three
land campaigns (some Peruvian units had the picklehaube for the first campaign)
but the second campaign has the most battles and there are fewer changes from
there to the third campaign.

As I’m doing these I’m also reading “Andean Tragedy” by
William Sater on my morning commute. This is the most recent academic study of
the war in English and has the benefit of being much, much, cheaper than “The
10 Cents War” the other standard English text.

“Andean Tragedy” has a better analysis of the causes of the
war and the overall political situation than the other books I’ve got
(including “To the Last Cartridge”) which are really books for the wargamer or
military modeller. Whilst that probably won’t bother most of my readers I find
it interesting. I was always a better political historian when at University
rather than anything else, despite my desire to excel at military history since
then. I’m beginning to get a better idea
of why the war erupted when it did and I’m not sure the writers in the books
I’ve read have got it right. Same with the Wikipedia pages where Peruvian and
Chileans still do battle over the conflict. I’m also starting to think that
with my range of interests over the last 5-10 years that I should probably
learn Spanish.

This book is relevant here as not only does it have the
political background it also has a good chapter on the formation of the armies
and navies of the various belligerents. In particular it has some information
on the racial mix of units. Peruvian cavalry, for example, had no native
Indians in their ranks as they were regarded as poor horsemen. Accordingly they
were made up of black and mixed race recruits with, presumably, officers of
European descent. Infantry units were less discerning although there was no
reference to any of Lima’s large Chinese population joining the ranks. What
this means, however, is that these units have me reaching for at least three
different skin tone paints as they are the most racially diverse I’ve had to
paint.

I succeeded in finishing off a couple of infantry units on
Sunday evening, and quite nice they look too. The Peruvians didn’t necessarily
get the idea that all units should wear the same colour uniform (the Bolivians
decidedly didn’t – every unit pretty much has a different colour jacket) so I
have a blue coated and white coated unit for my first pair. The blue units is
the Victoria Battalion and the white with green kepi chaps are the Cazad.
Officers paid for their own uniforms and like big bits of the army chose the
colour and style of the contemporary French Army whilst looking a bit like
Union forces in the ACW.

I think they’ve come out quite well. I’ve switched my
varnish to Homebase Quick Drying Antique Pine in Satin as the Ronseal
equivalent is becoming difficult to hunt down – I bought the last can on line
and did not get a discount for shopping in said fashion.

Other comments. The figures are my first from Outpost and
they were bought off the website pictures. OWS don’t do shows any more but
they’re good people when you contact them through the website and answered
questions promptly and with good humour.
The figures are crisply cast with little flash. The poses are okay, -
some of the advancing figures are less than inspiring, but the chap taking a
cartridge from his cartouche box is nicely realised. A couple of figures suffer
from unnatural limb length but overall they present a pleasing aspect and I’m
not regretting my purchases.

Enough of this waffle. Here are some pictures:

Battalion "Victoria"

Cazadores del Misti

They both deserve a bit better camera work, but I think you get the general idea. The unit flags will follow at a later date. These will be generated on the PC in Serif Drawplus, so I'll wait until I've done enough units to warrant printing out a sheet.

Monday, 20 April 2015

I was sitting at work, minding my own business, when my phone went off.

It was a text from Mrs T telling me that a book I've been waiting for had been delivered. I was rather pleased at the news as I've started to ratchet up the work on The Next Project and I'd found a book that just suited my needs quite by chance on the internet.

I therefore made an effort on the train on the way home to finish what I am currently reading (an Inspector Ghote mystery) so I could start afresh in the morning.

When I got in, sure enough there was a box for me on the dining room table. It certainly looked like a book, but wait.......

No! It was TOYS instead. Yes, Mr Outpost had put my order in the post without any notificational type e-mail to let me know they were on their way.

Whooppeee!!

I'd just rounded off my latest batch of Spanish El Cid plastics, so the painting desk is free.

If I can fit in an early finish at work his week then I can clean up and undercoat a test Regiment to see how they look.

I'm more excited by this project than I have been on any for a while.

But it would help to have that book.

PS - Apologies to regular readers on the paucity of posts recently. My wargaming has dropped right off and I haven't got much painting done either. Hopefully something positive to right about in the next few weeks.

Sunday, 5 April 2015

Finally managed to finish my Andalusian DBA 3 Army (III/34b). This doesn't have all the options, alas. There are no Christian mercenaries as I need another box of Spanish Heavy cavalry. The ones I have are tied up in the Spanish Army. Having said that I've got some spare figures in the El Cid Spanish Command box, so maybe I can do something with them.

First up 1 x General (Cv). Banners are made out of a tomato paste tube, poles from florist wire. The thin tin sheet folds well but it is very stiff and a pig to cut accurately. It has to be put in place before you can paint it so I found these banners hard going. The General's axe has had the original plastic version cut away and the head transplanted onto a pin which was then pushed into the hand and cut off to the right length.

1 x Andalusian Cavalry (Cv). I like the poses and design of these figures. Spears are florist wire and I've done the same trick with the axe head.

These are a mix of Black Guard and Andalusian spearmen (Sp). They include a number of axe wielding figures who have been converted to spearmen with pins. Everyone else has been suitably pinned as well. I like the figures on the right a lot, but there's only 4 in the whole box of 96, which is a bit of a shame as I'm not buying another 3 boxes to make an AMW unit.

2 x mujahids (LH). Again with pins for spears. The overall colour palette for this army was mostly blue and green with red kept to an absolute minimum. Really stands out when it is used, however.

2 x archers (Ps). Not completely happy with the look of these, - especially the figure with the white hoops on blue. I had half a mind to repaint him & I think I probably should have done. The pose of the figure drawing an arrow from the quiver is good however.

Finally 3 x javelinmen (Ps). The army list says these should be berbers, but I went for a more arab look. These are the most colourful figures in the army, again with pins for javelins.

Don't know how well these chaps will perform. There's a lot of light stuff in there and no real killing bases (no Kn or Bd) but you can never tell with DBA. Adding Spanish Feudals as allies might bolster them a bit.

What with working in London and stopping to do the Taipings these three armies based on the Hat El Cid range have taken longer than expected. I'm pleased with the overall look of them:

That's the Almoravids (Islamic Berber III/75) at the back and Feudal Spanish (III/35b) at the front, with the new guys in the middle.

Having got this far the next step is to ramp up the numbers for AMW. I've already started with the Mujahids and have a couple of completed four base units. Of course I need to decide on the army composition first really, rather than just paint all the stuff in the boxes I've got (although that technique often works as well). As indicated above I'm a bit light in some areas and over supplied in others - mainly arab/Moor heavy cavalry.

This will all be blown of course when the Peruvian & Chilean forces arrive so they may be added to intermittently rather than consistently over the next 12 months. Still, who's in a hurry?

Finally I must say thank you to blog follower Jim who made me the gifft of these figures. They've been a joy to work on.

A Good Friday break from work gave me a chance to open up Shedquarters. Phil still needs to do some work on his Yarmuk DBA refight so we agreed to pick that up in the afternoon. Whilst I was waiting for him to arrive I thought it might be interesting to re fight Hydaspes using AMW straight, without any of my various additions over the years.

As its only 8 units a side compromises have to be made. Alex ends up with just a light cavalry unit on his left and the Indians only have one unit of chariots.

It's not a subtle battle. The Macedonian right wing has some fancy manoeuvring as the Companions try to avoid a one on one with the chariots but otherwise its fairly head on.

In the middle the elephants start an all out assault on the main Macedonian line.

At first it looks like it's going badly as one elephant fails three saving rolls and promptly dies.

On the right the Indian cavalry succumb to the Alexandrian onslaught and it looks like they can get two on one with the chariots.

The remaining elephant is doing stunning work, apparently invulnerable, churning its way through the phalangites. The bow units perform creditably in the shooting phase as well.

Half a phalanx shot away and another crushed by an elephant. Not looking good for the invaders.

Another phalanx crushed by an elephant and if you look closely you'll see there's one last base of the other unit just in contact with the archers. Still, the chariots have been seen off and that leaves Alex with two units of companions and one of light horse out of the photo at the bottom.

The race is on to see if the Companions can hoover up the Indian Heavy Archers before they lose another unit to the elephant.

Hanging on by the smallest of margins the archers are still there when the elephant comes up and catches their opponents in the flank.

And that's it. A 3-2 win to the Indians. A very close game that could have gone either way. Perhaps a better outcome than the game at Bletchley?

Just as I finished Phil arrived with Yarmuk. I have no pictures of the game. We played it twice with me as the Byzantines. I won the first game fairly easily. As we reflected on this it became clear than the games we had played featured Byzantine wins on a regular basis with the Arabs infrequently troubling the scorer. The flank march was actually a liability as it got crushed by Byzantine reserves and the Arab holding action in the centre wasn't a great success either.

A discussion of what we wanted to see led to an upgrading of the Arab foot from Blade to Spear and a repositioning of the Byzantine reserves and commanders. The next game then gave us an Arab victory and a much more satisfactory game narrative.

All Phil has to do now is finish the figures, take some more pictures & write it up.

About Me

I have been a wargamer as long as I can remember, pretty much.
My interests spread pretty generally across the entire historical period. I mostly prefer to develop and use my own rules. As such I've been a member of Wargames Developments since the early 80's.
I do use commercially available rules and have a large collection, - many of which have been played. I've been fond of the RFCM approach from Peter Pig in the past, and I make a lot of use of Neil Thomas' rules. They always seem a good place to start.